49-51. Verses to a friend.

51-2. Written at an inn on a particular occasion. Shenstone's most popular piece. Graves, in his recollections of Shenstone, gives us the history of this poem. About 1750, after a separation of some years, Shenstone paid a visit to Whistler at Whitchurch. Whistler's mother was still alive, and married to a clergyman of fortune; they lived in the Manor House. "A very small box in the same village was the home of Whistler. Some differences arose. Shenstone's servant had been sent to a little inn, and Whistler's love of entertainment irritated the sensitive poet. Shenstone

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Ruckholt, mentioned in the fifth stanza as a place of diversion near London, was in the parish of Leyton, Essex. It was the residence of Sir Michael Hickes and his descendants, and was traditionally called a palace of Queen Elizabeth. From 1742-44 it was in the occupation of William Barton, who opened it as a place of public amusement for breakfasts and afternoon concerts, which were held weekly during the summer; oratorios were sometimes performed." It was pulled down about 1750 (Lysons, 'Environs of London,' iv. 163-4; John Kennedy's Parish of Leyton,' pp. 318-20). 54-5. The extent of cookery.

55-6. The progress of advice, a common case. 56-7. Slender's ghost.

57-8. Upon riddles.

All the above pieces are by Shenstone, through whom the subsequent poems to p. 93 were obtained.

58-9. Verses to a writer of riddles.

The authorship of this piece is not mentioned. 60-61. To ****** By Anthony Whistler, Esq. 61. Song. By the same.

62. To Lady Fane on her grotto at Basilden, 1746. By Mr. Graves ('D.N.B.'). She was sister of James, Earl Stanhope, and wife of Charles, Viscount Fane. She died 17 Aug., 1762. Shenstone says (Letters,' p. 85) that the grotto cost her 5,000l.....It is a very beautiful disposition of the finest collection of shells I ever saw." 62-3. The invisible [written at college, 1747]. 63-6. The pepper-box and salt seller [sic], fable. To*****

67-9. Written near Bath, 1755.

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The last three pieces are also by Graves.

70-72. Verses to William Shenstone, Esq., on receiving a gilt pocket-book, 1751. By Mr. [Rev. Richard] Jago ('D.N.B.').

Part II. April, 1749. 72-5. The swallows, written September, 1748;

77-8. Valentine's day.

78-82. The scavengers, a town eclogue in the manner of Swift.

82-3. Hamlet's soliloquy imitated.

The last four pieces are also by Jago.

83-4. Transcribed from the Rev. Mr. Pixel's parsonage garden near Birmingham, 1757. 84-7. Malvern Spa, 1757; inscribed to Dr. [John] Wall ('D.N.B.'). By the Rev. Mr. Perry. The verses are mentioned by Shenstone in his letters (8 April, 1757). Dr. Wall, he adds, promoted a subscription in the county towards building, near this well,. for the accommodation of strangers." Wall's Experiments and Observations on the Malvern Waters' reached a third edition in 1763.

87-9. Some reflections upon hearing the bell toll for the death of a friend. By Mr. J. G. Joseph Giles of Birmingham, a friend of Shenstone, who corrected his poems. A volume of them came out in 1771.

autumn, 1756. By the same. 90-91. The robin, an elegy, written at the close of

92-3. Epitaph by the same.

93-5. Ut pictura poesis. By Mr. Nourse, late of All Souls College, 1741.

95-8. Vacuna. By Dr. D-, 1739. [Dr. Sneyd Davies ('D.N.B.').]

The four following pieces are also by Sneyd Davies :—

98-101. On J. W. [John Whaley] ranging my pamphlets.

6

Whaley was Fellow of King's College, Cam-bridge, author of 'A Collection of Poems,' 1732, and A Collection of Original Poems,' 1745. Whaley was the private tutor and friend of Horace Walpole. A Journey to Houghton,' a poem by Whaley, is printed at the end of Edes Walpoliana' (1767), pp. 117-43.

6

took place on 4 Sept., 1739. This wife was buried 22 Oct., 1744. He married again, and died on 10 Feb., 1782 (Lady Russell, Swallowfield,' pp. 226-44). Other poems by Sneyd Davies on Dodd are in Nichols's collection, vol. vi. Two interesting letters from Benjamin Stillingfleet on the offer of the tutorship of Dodd's son are in Coxe's Literary Life of Stillingfleet,' i. 100-4. These five pieces are included in Whaley's 1745 collection as 'by a friend." Whaley was dissipated and in difficulties, and Davies gave him the poems by way of charity" (D.N.B.,' xiv. 156).

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66

and

Garnier, of Rookesbury, Hampshire, enjoyed for many years the lucrative sinecure of apothecary-general to the army," sold to the army the produce of his salt mine. He also married a rich heiress. This income enabled him to entertain in luxury the chief wits of the day and to form a great collection of valuable china (‘The Garniers of Hampshire ').

William Pearce, a medical man of Bath, was an intimate friend of Gainsborough, who painted his portrait, and presented it to him as a wedding gift. It was on view at the Grosvenor Gallery Exhibition, 1885, when it was the property of J. Rubens

ed. 1782).

110. Song.

In the 1758 and later editions this song is erroneously entered as "by the same, i.e., J. Earl. On the authority of a letter from Deane Swift, Esq. (Suppl. to Swift's Works,' 1779, p. 612), the authorship is given to Mrs. Pilkington, though it is constantly printed as by Mrs. Barber. Horace Walpole was of opinion that it was too good for Mrs. Pilkington. In the 1782 ed. of this collection it is definitely assigned to Mrs. Pilkington.

111-17. Verses spoken [by the king's scholars] at Westminster at their annual feast, Queen Elizabeth's birthday, 1729-30.

By Marius D'Assigny, one of the ushers of Westminster School, says the 1782 ed., with the further statement that the lines have sometimes been attributed to Dr. Robert Freind. The first part is spoken as by J. F.; the second part by Lord C. (presumably

Lord Carteret).

117-18. Letter to Sir Robert Walpole by the late Henry Fielding, Esq. (D.N.B.').

119-30. Epistle from the Elector of Bavaria to the French King, after Ramillies.

130-32. To the Duke of Marlborough. 132-3. Ode on Miss Harriet Hanbury [his niece] six years old. By Sir C. Hanbury Williams ('D.Ñ.B.').

134-5. Song upon Miss Harriet Hanbury addressed to the Rev. Mr. Birt. By the same. Several lively letters, written between 1748 and 1756, by Sir Charles to Birt are in the former's works, vol. iii. (1822 ed.) pp. 73-6 and 85-109. Birt was married, and then living at Newland.

136-8. To Mr. Garnier and Mr. Pearce of Bath, a grateful ode in return for the extraordinary kind ness and humanity they shewed to me and my eldest daughter, now Lady Essex, 1753. By the

same.

mann.

1907. It was then lent by F. C. K. FleischF. G. Stephens says in his notes to he was more than ninety years old. the first exhibition that Pearce lived until At his Mrs. Luck, and when she died her husband death the picture passed to his only daughter, sold it to Powell. Two letters from Gainsborough to Pearce are in Fulcher's life of The first was written in 1783, when GainsGainsborough, 2nd ed., pp. 128-9, 147-8. borough was going to see the Lakes; the other in 1788, just before his death.

W. P. COURTNEY. (To be continued.)

LORD BYRON'S ANTIDOTE AGAINST MISAN

THROPY.-I have read little of Byron for the last sixty years, and do not know whether his editors have recorded words preserved to us by Silvio Pellico (Dei Capo Settimo, Stima dell' Uomo. Prose Doveri degli Uomini, Discorso ad un Giovane,' di Silvio Pellico,' Firenze, Felice Le Monnier, 1851, pp. 316-17) ::

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'Quando siamo tentati di disprezzare l'umanità vedendo co' nostri, o leggendo nella storia molte sue turpitudini, poniamo mente a quei venerandi mortali che pur nella storia splendono. L'iracondo, ma generoso Byron mi diceva essere questo l'unico modo con cui potesse salvarsi dalla misantropia.'Il primo grand' uomo che mi ricorre alla mente,' dicevami egli, è sempre Mosè: Mosè che rialza un popolo avvilitissimo; che lo salva dall' obbrobrio dell' idolatria e de la schiavitù; che gli detta una religione de' patriarchi e la religione de' tempi legge piena di sapienza, vincolo mirabile tra la inciviliti, ch'è il vangelo. Le virtù e le istitutioni di Mosè sono il mezzo con cui la Provvidenza produce in quel popolo valenti uomini di stato, valenti guerrieri, egregi cittadini, santi zelatori dell' equità, chiamati a profetare la caduta de' superbi e degli ipocriti, e la futura civiltà di tutte le nazioni.

"Considerando alcuni grand' uomini, e principalmente il mio Mose,' soggiungeva Byron, ripeto sempre con entusiasmo quel sublime verso di Dante Che di vederli, in me stesso m' esalto!

e ripiglio allora buon concetto di questa carne d' Adamo, e degli spiriti che porta.'

Questo parole del sommo poeta britannico mi restarono impresse indelebilmente nell' animo, e confesso d' aver tratto più d' una volta gran giovamento dal far come lui, allorchè l' orribile tentazione della misantropia m' assalse."

JOHN E. B. MAYOR.

St. John's College, Cambridge.

DEVONSHIRE WITCHCRAFT.-At the recent gathering of the Devonshire Association, according to The Plymouth Weekly Mercury of 27 July,

"the Rev. F. E. W. Langdon related what he had been told by old people of Membury witches. Hannah Henley, who lived over sixty years ago, was carried away by the devil (laughter). She was found on a Good Friday morning lying dead on a branch stretching over the stream close to Boobhill, where she lived." She had a kettle by her side, and her body was terribly scratched and bruised. She had been dragged through one of the lights of the window and over a great high thorn rattle, on the top of which was some part of her clothing. Her three cats were with her. She had been ill the day before it happened, and some people had offered to stay with her, but she told them they had better go away, as she would die hard that night. At the inquest a verdict was returned of water on the brain' (laughter). Everybody had been afraid of her. She had a grudge against Farmer P., and one day, when his team of horses was returning from ploughing, she was seen drawing a circle with two sticks on the road in front of them, into which they stepped and all died. She laid a curse on some

cows belonging to Farmer D., and they went blind and mad. She was one day coming up through Farmer P.'s yard, and she looked into a fold where there were some lambs. They all turned head over tail until they died (laughter).”

Fair Park, Exeter.

HARRY HEMS.

DOOR-SHUTTING PROVERB.-If my memory is not at fault, a Lincolnshire saying like the Nottinghamshire one given below appeared in a recent volume of 'N. & Q': When people don't shut doors properly, folks say to them, 'I see you come from Warsop way; you don't know how to shut doors behind you.'

It is difficult to understand what gave rise to the proverb, and what its full significance originally was. T. R. E. N. T.

"FIFE-BOY."-This compound does not appear in H.E.D.,' but it would seem to have been a recognized one, for The Annual Register' for 1804 (p. 404) records that on 1 August,

MAYPOLE AT HUBY, YORKSHIRE.-I have let the date escape me of The Yorkshire Herald from which I cut, one day last May, an account of the hoisting of a new maypole at Huby, near York. I think the record is worthy of preservation :

"Last year the Maypole which stood at the southern end of the village of Huby was condemned by the local authorities as being unsafe, and was, consequently, levelled to the ground. The people of Huby, however, did not wish to see the custom associated with the Maypole lapse, and a committee was formed, under the presidency of the Vicar of Sutton (the Rev. H. B. Drew), to obtain another pole by public subscription. A fine Norwegian pine, over 60 feet long, was bought, and its hoisting yesterday was the occasion for some charming May Day celebrations on the village green......A procession was formed at the north end of the village, whence the pole, resplendent in a coat of red, white, and blue paint, was carried on car-wheels to its site, headed by the Easingwold Town Brass Band, a contingent of juvenile dancers from Huntington bringing up the rear. Considerable interest was shown in the event, scores of people attending from the surrounding villages. While the Maypole was being hoisted the Huntington children, who wore vari coloured costumes of art muslin, dantily tripped round a miniature Maypole erected on the village green. The youngsters went through the intricacies of plaiting the ribbons with an absence of hesitancy which spoke volumes for the training they had received."

ST. SWITHIN.

The same newspaper of the following day the reader being reminded that Exeter had a column of sympathetic comments, Hall,

'as two generations have known it, no longer exists. The last meeting to be held within its precincts took place yesterday, and the doors were closed. On the seats and windows of the meetingroom-one of the smaller halls-were the chalkmarks affixed by the auctioneer, who on Tuesday will be scattering the fittings far and wide." The London County Council is stated to be to blame for the demise of the famous gathering-ground of evangelists and philanthropists,' on account of the demands made upon the tenants, who felt that they